not exactly but off by only a few degrees...im not saying u should get the megahalems, just saying even some of the biggest rifle design coolers will fit clear of the ram and there are some quite good ones out there.

for example the Tt Venomous X is toe to to with the noctua on anything lower than 1.35v on an i7 (after that the noctua does start pulling away but at that point on most i7s ur giving massive voltage for only minor OC boosts so the max OC on the Tt isnt too shabby next to a noctua)!

yes the noctua is more expensive, bigger and heavier but honestly unless u want bragging id personally rather save the money and get a better priced cooler even if I didn't have the ram issues...

Here another review showing how close these things are:
[image]

and remember this is the i7 920 @ 1.35v pushing 4ghz, the higher end i7s can push higher clocks at these voltage and temperature outputs...

custom loop water cooling is a nice option if possible, and I'd say a smarter choice over the nh-d14 unless u couldn't deal with the maintenance!

with 150-200$ u could get a decent kit for ur cpu and once ur started its not too hard adding gpu cooling blocks and more radiators as long as u have place ;)

Well, what are the temps with the decent watercooling kits, I'm not planning to buy GPU waterblock, because I already have watercooling on my 5770. I have a link to the site where theres a kit but ill post it later, link is dead??

it all depends on ur loop, thats why its called a custom loop. general rule of thumb tho, anything with a rad bigger than a single 120 should give better temps, but u could also have some insane chilled water systems that can go down to the negatives even! so it all depends...